Stuff for the Teen Age

Even More Stuff for the Teen Age - Suggested GLBTQ Fiction Titles
by Ryan DonovanApril 29, 2010

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Did you love reading The Vast Fields of Ordinary and The Mariposa Club from the Stuff for the Teen Age List? Want to read some more cool books like that? Here are a few GLBTQ-themed titles that I enjoyed reading. Some will make you laugh and some will make you cry... but all of these titles will tell a great story involving relatable teenage gay or lesbian characters.

This is the story of two very different boys with the same name. The first Will Grayson is straight; a reluctant sidekick to his fabulous best friend “Tiny” Cooper. Tiny, a very large and very popular gay football player, is a very hard guy to be friends with. When he starts interfering in Grayson’s love life, specifically with the girl he likes named Jane, the two childhood friends eventually stop speaking. The second Will Grayson, a quiet and withdrawn boy from a Chicago suburb, never really opens up to anyone. He has one friend and he kind of hates her. His only solace is his computer and the cute boy who talks to him nearly every day. As he makes plans to finally meet the boy of his dreams, he is rocked by a shocking betrayal… and happens to meet the other Will Grayson in the middle of the night right outside a Chicago porn store. It all leads up to Tiny’s epic play about his fabulous life, where actors playing the roles of both Will Graysons force the titular pair to reevaluate their relationship to the one, the only Tiny Cooper.

It all starts one fateful morning when Stu's younger brother Billy catches him touching himself in the shower. I mean, it -is- a sin... right? It even has a name; The Sin of Onan. When Stu's brother tells the entire town about the "incident" everyone Stu knows shuns him for doing the dirty deed. Everyone, that is, but Fon Pyre- a demon Stu raises periodically to question about religious truths and lies. When things go from bad to super duper crazy overnight, Stu eventually discovers he's dealing with a fallen angel who is warping the townpeoples' minds. And this angel? Turns out, he's not the only mindwarping dude with wings, either. Will Stu be able to defeat the angels, save his mom, and survive the wrath of the entire town before they burn off his crotch in righteous justice?

After Daniel’s mother died, his alcoholic father packed up as many of their belongings as he could and drove as far away from their Long Island home as their RV would take them. The pair ended up in Kansas… and Daniel could not have thought up a more miserable existence. Rebelling, he dyes his hair green. This earns him the nickname “Sprout.” Daniel ceases to be; whoever he had been was left behind back in New York. Unable to really connect with anyone in the small Kansas town, Sprout eventually catches the attention of Ms Miller, his cocktail-loving English teacher who believes in his writing. As Sprout begins writing the story of his life, which includes a bossy girl and a hot jock he occasionally hooks up with, he also begins to open himself up to the possibility of something great. When he meets Ty, the sexy boy from the wrong side of the Kansas tracks, everything changes… and it forces Sprout to finally grow up.

Morgan isn't a big fan of living in Central Nowhere. As the name implies, there's not a lot going on. Her love life is also a complicated mess; there's her boring boyfriend Derek, her work crush Rob, and the girl who-kissed-her-one-time Tessa. Does kissing a girl (and enjoying it) make her a lesbian... even if she likes guys, too? Who does she really want to be with? Morgan honestly doesn't even know. The one person she does know that she loves is her grandmother. But when her alcoholic father spills the big family secret and shatters Morgan's world, everything she thought she knew about life, love, and grandma lies in tatters. The dreaded junior prom looms on the horizon. When Morgan finally picks the person she wants to be with, will her fragile emotional state end things for them before they truly begin?

There was just an Oprah episode about the very thing Will Grayson is about. I kept hoping she would mention the title but no. Have you ever googled yourself? I am pretty much the only Anne Rouyer in North America all my other namesakes are in France.
Love that you mention "Evil". It is the weirdest but good book I read last year. I kept wondering how I would recommend that book to teens without mentioning the m-word. Call me prudish but I just can't bring myself to bring up the topic with teens without giggling like Beavis and Butthead. Unfortuantly, the m-word is all over that book. I can just imagine some parent picking up that book and going, "you got this where??".